Will People Have Less Sex in 2034 Than They Do Today?

The Question

There is a particular kind of silence that researchers started noticing around 2010. It showed up in surveys first — small but consistent drops in how often people reported having sex. By 2020, the signal was impossible to ignore. Americans in their twenties were having less sex than any generation of young adults since reliable data collection began. And unlike previous dips tied to recessions or social upheaval, this one had no obvious single cause. It was structural.

This matters for reasons that go beyond the personal. Declining sexual activity is closely linked to rising loneliness, falling birth rates, weakening pair bonds, and deteriorating mental health — all of which are already straining societies across the developed world. Understanding whether this decline will continue, stabilize, or reverse by 2034 is not a trivial question. It is, in a quiet way, one of the most consequential social predictions of our time.

What the Evidence Shows

The numbers are striking. In 1990, American adults reported having sex an average of 62 times per year. By 2018 — before the pandemic arrived — that figure had dropped to 54 times. Among adults under 30, the decline was steeper: the share of young men reporting no sexual activity in the past year tripled between 2008 and 2018, rising from 10% to 28%. For young women, the increase was smaller but still significant, climbing from 8% to 18%.

These are not numbers from a niche study. They come from the General Social Survey, one of the longest-running and most respected social science datasets in the world. And the trend has continued since. Post-pandemic data suggests the decline accelerated rather than reversed, with remote work, reduced social mixing, and deepening screen dependency all playing a role.

The decline is not evenly distributed. Married and cohabiting couples have seen smaller drops. The sharpest falls are among single people — and particularly among young men, who are increasingly disconnected from the dating market entirely. Single women under 30 report higher satisfaction with being unpartnered than at any previous point in survey history. The picture that emerges is not one of frustrated desire but of a generation renegotiating what closeness looks like — and in many cases, opting out of the search for it altogether.

Why This Is Happening

Smartphones replaced social time. The average person now spends more than four hours a day on their phone. That time came from somewhere — and research consistently shows it came from in-person socializing, the primary arena in which people have historically met partners. Less time together means fewer relationships, fewer relationships means less sex. The mechanism is almost boringly simple once you see it.

Dating apps promised more and delivered less. The rise of swipe-based dating was supposed to make meeting people easier. Instead, it created a market where a small number of highly attractive users accumulate most of the matches, leaving a large majority of users — especially men — with little success and growing cynicism. Many young men have disengaged from dating entirely, retreating into online communities, gaming, and pornography as substitutes for intimacy they've stopped believing they can find.

Mental health is in crisis. Anxiety and depression are powerful suppressors of sexual desire and social confidence. Both have risen sharply, especially among young adults. A person who is anxious, depressed, and socially isolated is significantly less likely to seek out or sustain an intimate relationship. Mental health and sexual frequency are not separate trends — they are the same trend, seen from different angles.

Expectations have shifted. Young women, in particular, report higher standards for relationships than previous generations — standards that many available partners fail to meet. This is not unreasonable. But the gap between what people want from a partner and what the dating pool offers has widened, and for many, not partnering has become preferable to settling.

What Could Happen

What Can We Do

The data is sobering — but trends are not destiny. Several things, at both the individual and societal level, have real potential to change the trajectory.

Invest in in-person third places. Cafés, sports clubs, community centers, and hobby groups are where people have always met partners and friends. Societies that fund and prioritize these spaces — and individuals who use them — see better social outcomes. The antidote to app-based isolation is almost embarrassingly old-fashioned: show up somewhere, regularly, with the same people.

Take mental health seriously as a social issue, not just a personal one. Anxiety and depression are not just individual suffering — they are collective relationship failures. Funding accessible mental health care, reducing workplace stress, and addressing the social media factors driving youth mental health decline will have downstream effects on intimacy that no relationship app can replicate.

Redesign dating apps or abandon them. The current model optimizes for engagement, not connection. Apps that prioritize compatible matches over infinite swiping, that encourage meeting quickly rather than texting indefinitely, and that measure success by relationships formed rather than sessions opened would be a genuine improvement. The current model is, by most available evidence, making the problem worse.

Talk about this openly. One of the strangest features of this crisis is how rarely it is discussed. Young men in particular suffer in silence, conditioned to believe that admitting loneliness or romantic failure is shameful. The more openly these trends are named and discussed — in schools, families, and public culture — the more normal it becomes to seek help, change behavior, and pursue genuine connection.